A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

"Have you returned since?" Oliver said. "To Solgrim, I mean."

Tolsey shook his head. "I could not. It still visits me in my dreams. I would fear ever making such a return."

…

…

"Oliver Patrick?" The guard said, his face twisted in a disgruntled frown. "You've no reason to be going to the Capital. Orders from above – your travel is denied."

He'd heard the names Idris and Blackthorn and overlooked both of them with a sniff. He'd been looking around the carriage purposefully, as if he knew who else he was likely to find there. Then, of course, his gaze had settled onto Oliver and he'd immediately dismissed them.

Whilst Blackthorn had been furious enough to run the man through with the rapier at her hip, Oliver and Verdant merely shrugged, kept their cool and took their carriage a distance back along the road. The carriage of their Serving Class retainers trailed after them, and together, they took refuge in the shade offered by some green trees on the roadside.

After idling away their time for a couple of hours, they soon saw the grand carriage of Queen Asabel plodding its way down the road. A carriage enamelled by silver, with beautiful prancing black horses with yellow feathers on their heads.

Before and after the carriage came a detachment of nearly a hundred soldiers. Her Pillar of War rode along behind her, fully armoured, with his sword sheathed in his saddlebag, ready to be drawn at a moment's notice.

The man raised an eyebrow seeing their carriages, but it must have been expected enough, for the carriages did not even slow. General Blackthorn simply gestured with his head for them to fall in behind them, and they continued on their way.

Soon enough, they were back at the same gate. Of course, the guardsmen could not turn away a Silver Queen, nor her retainers. When Oliver's carriage came back through again, he merely saluted politely to the man, and continued on his way. It was the sweetest, and pettiest sort of revenge.

With Ingolsol's urging, Oliver did it more than once at the next few gates, grinning at the irked glares that the soldiers would shoot him, knowing full well that they were failing to fulfil the duty that their King had put down on them. But their hands were tired, and they could do nothing apart from watch Oliver pass through, smiling to himself.

In between the gates, the land was wide open for the most part. On occasion, the forests were allowed to come right to the edge of the road, but such instances were a rare treat. For the most part, what they saw were fields upon fields of farmland, along with several villages and even the occasional town that they passed straight through.

Unlike the North West, where Oliver had spent most of his life, there hardly seemed to be a space that wasn't used. There weren't really any sprawling plains. The influence of man was seen wherever one looked, whether it be in the lonely stone guard towers overlooking a section of farmland, or in the bustling market villages and the many roads that led to and from them.

"The land here is fertile," Verdant explained. "These farmlands make up nearly eighty per cent of our country's food. The wealth and abundance they generate is difficult to match by any other house. Mere occupation of this territory comes with immense power."

Oliver nodded at the explanation. It made sense why the High King's power so often went uncontested once he had been selected. The lands that the High King occupied were by far the most wealthy in all of the country. They lacked the trade with foreign countries, but in return, they were granted equal trade with all four Silver Kings, and it had its wealth of produce that it itself produced.

As one might expect, the Central Kingdom – the High King's exclusive domain – was also the most populated of all the Kingdoms. It boasted numbers that easily matched that of all the Four Silver Kingdoms put together, despite being of approximately equal size to them.

That wealth was seen everywhere that a human hand was. Even the peasantry seemed to have better clothing than what Oliver was used to seeing, but it was the architecture that really seemed to illustrate it.

Everything had an extra artistic flourish, whether it be a craftsman's touch of a dragon head on a small village townhouse, or the masterful work of a metalworker on a lamppost, turning it from a mere staff of iron for a torch, to an artefact entwined with a black iron mermaid, who held the same torch aloft with her sculpted hands.

"This is the road most often travelled to the Capital – if one is coming by the Pendragon lands," Verdant told him. The way he said it implied that there was more meaning to the fact.

"You mean to tell me that I should not be too impressed, until I have seen beyond that which they want me to see?" Oliver said. The man certainly had a point. If it was known that this road would be well travelled, then it was in the best interests of the Crown to keep it well maintained, and to have the image it presents to be a positive and prosperous one.

"Indeed. There is much wealth in the Central Kingdom, but that wealth is not necessarily evenly distributed," Verdant said. "With so many people, there is fierce competition over land and resources. There is a level of poverty in the Central Kingdom that the other kingdoms cannot reach."

"Hm…" Oliver said, considering it. "Because even peasants of the purest sort at least have the land that they need to hunt and to forage and to build – as long as they look for it."

"Indeed," Verdant said, agreeing. "But I do not say that so that you will overlook the achievements you see on this roadside. These are the testaments of civilization. This is indeed prosperity. If the High Kings of the past were to see such affluence, they would no doubt be proud."

"So this is where the coin goes, when the High King seems so unwilling to spend it on keeping our borders safe," Oliver said.